Ég að fara heim. I'm going home.
For those who've followed my saga — indeed, the very word "saga" is Icelandic for "story", a word that comes to English from the dozens of epic stories written by a tiny population of Icelanders during the Middle Ages when most of Europe was illiterate — you know that I was born in and grew up in the US, but after falling in love with Iceland, set out to move to this distant country of fire and ice, water and wind, of colourful rooftops and rainbow-tinged mountains, of gigantic waterfalls and multi-hour sunsets. And that after moving in February, I had to come back to wait on my permits.
Well, I have them. And on Sunday, I — and my little Amazon parrot — will be taking the flight to head back to my home, and this time, hopefully, permanently.
Read more below the fold -- plus, I delve a little bit into Iceland's incredible music scene, with a focus in this diary on the "lighter" side, songstresses and crooners.
Sunnudagur, 22 apríl. Houston to Charlotte. Charlotte to New York. New York to Keflavík the next day. Keflavík to Kópavogur, to Hjallabrekku, my "terraced bluff" street a couple blocks from the coast.
Mal, my amazon parrot (whose name ironically means "language" in Icelandic), will be riding under my seat for the first two flights, then in a pet compartment in a different cage for the last flight across the pond.
It wasn't easy to come with him — although, none of this was easy. After months of working with the Icelandic food and veternary authority (Matvælastofnun), I had been on hold until I got my permit. Once I had it, it was time to start a ticking clock by taking him in for blood and stool tests. For after the tests are taken, he must travel to Iceland within 21 days. However, the blood and stool must be cultured, which takes time. The incompetent local vet told me — after he took my $500, after accidentally injuring my parrot with the needle, leaving his feathers all bloody, and after waiting an extra day with the samples -- that the tests would take 2-3 weeks. Given that the Matvælastofnun requires getting the paperwork a minimum of 5 days before you arrive, and it takes time to travel that would leave a leeway of somewhere between 0 and -6 days. I did my own research, tracking down the lab, calling them up, and found that the vet was wrong. I got the results back in time, with a couple days leeway. And thankfully my boss was able to schedule my return flight for the specific day necessary. Let's hope there are no flight delays... or that this new issue of whether or not he needs a CITES permit and whether I can get one in time doesn't cause further problems.
When we get to my "apartment" (a wing of a residential house), he is to be quarantined there. I had earlier gotten approval and inspections for a "home quarantine", a nice thing that Iceland allows. We'll walk in through the two-story geothermal greenhouse, left at my door, and I'll set up his cage right beside my "houseplants".
"Houseplants" is of course in quotes because, as described in an earlier diary, I went through huge hoops to ship these large, delicate tropical plants (everything from Carrie Mango to Jaboticaba) to Iceland in my luggage, and they are now growing under grow lights. To care for them, I put out an ad on Bland.is, the Icelandic equivalent of craigslist, and got over a dozen replies from prospective plantsitters -- ranging from middle-aged housewives to a guy who was willing to water my plants for free if I'd treat him like dirt and let him kiss my feet ;) Ultimately, I went instead with a friend of a friend who wanted only that I bring back some things from the US for her that are cheaper here than in Iceland. I've chatted with her a bunch randomly on Facebook since :)
Of course, my apartment is nearly barren. In about three weeks, that will seriously change. For a few days ago, nearly everything I own was loaded up in Iowa onto two trucks — one for my car, and the other, a gigantic 40-foot oceangoing shipping crate on a flatbed truck for everything else. The latter being especially challenging because neither shipping crates nor flatbeds have ramps, and flatbeds are 120-160 cm off the ground. I rented a forklift, and thankfully, one of my packers had previously worked operating a forklift.
When the household goods get to Iceland, customs will spend several days going through everything I own, rannsaka and ransacking everything (hehe, see what I did there? Rannsaka sounds like "ransack" but actually means "inspect"). They're of course looking for contraband, but more often than not, their prime focus is on trying to make me pay as much in import taxes as they can. But I expect to be bitten much harder in expenses when the car arrives — thousands of dollars in taxes, registration fees, etc, on top of all of the shipping fees. The total may be as much as I payed for the car itself! But to have what will probably be the highest-MPG vehicle in the whole country (a plug-in hybrid first-gen Insight), in a country where all cars are expensive and bensín is $7.50 a gallon, that's worth it to me. :)
(Above: A gas station near Grundarfjörður, on Snæfellsnes. Photo credit: Rob / WildVanilla)
Dealing with storage, moving, arranging help, buying the furniture I didn't move, getting an Icelandic driver's license, insurance, cable service, a bank account, finishing registering with the Útlendingastofnun (immigration department), and about half a million other tasks will be quite the feat on its own. But eventually I'll be able to settle down. I will say this: as much as everyone seems to complain about the Útlendingastofnun, they really did a rush order on my permit. It was mere weeks instead of the months I was told to expect to wait. So, þákka þér kærlega, Útlendingastofnun!
Rather than go further into the details, I'm going to totally switch gears and talk about... music. Iceland has way too broad of a music scene (despite only having 320,000 people, a smaller population than the city of Santa Ana, California) to cover in a single diary. So let's just stay on the lighter side and focus on some songstresses and crooners.
First off, we start with a new song from the band Sometime: "Mind Repair"
Now we turn to Sóley, who's just now starting to see some international success (although nothing yet to the level of more well-known Icelandic bands like Sigur Rós, Björk, or Of Monsters and Men). Here is "I'll Drown" from the album "We Sink":
Also with a limited degree of international fame, we have the lovely ambient-pop of Múm, a band that's been around so long and changed members so often that it's hard to classify as a single band. They've produced copious works, but to pick one, here follows "Green Grass of Tunnel":
Currently touring with with Of Monsters and Men, here's Lay Low with "Vonin" (The Hope). The whole album uses the works of female poets in Iceland's history as lyrics. The lyrics to the below song were written by Elín Sigurðardóttir in 1936 and roughly translate as, "On a weak lifeline, my hope grows / She returns before she dwells ### She knows that noone waits for requital / If frost digs into the heartstrings ### She returns, then winter and ice recede / With spring and song on fluttering wings ### There she has come / As I wished for and love ### With a little, beautiful / Leaf in the mouth":
It'd be a shame if I didn't get to Samaris, a singer who I discovered when I heard this beautiful song, "Góða Tungl" (Good Moon), on the Grapevine's Iceland Airwaves sampler:
Switching genders for a bit, we have Svavar Knútur, who I first saw perform in a crowded herring factory on the farthest outreaches of Iceland's Austfirðir (Eastfjords) in the tiny town of Borgarfjörður Eystri. If you ever meet him, give him a hug; it's tradition. ;) Here is "While The World Burns":
One of the best selling albums in Iceland a few months ago was from Mugison. The slow, melancholic but catchy single "Stingum Af" (We Walk Out) was widely played, to the point were there was even a somewhat viral video of a toddler trying to sing along ;) But here's the album version:
More upbeat, here's Snorri Helgason, pulling off a sound halfway between "Folk" and "Sigur Rós" with the song "Ólan":
Perhaps more in the category "bizzarre" than "light", and with a video worth tuning out, is the strange yet somehow catchy "Niðrá Strönd" (Down to the Beach) by Prinspóló:
Back to a more relaxing bent, here is "Sleep Now" by "Ask The Slave"
Sleep Now by Ask the Slave
And to wrap things up for now, let's go with "Bráðum Burt" (Away Soon) by Eldar
This is just the tiniest fraction of even this part of the Icelandic music scene. I discover about one new awesome Icelandic band every week. It's really unbelievable for a country with 1/200th the population of the UK and 1/1000th that of the US.
Anyway, I wish you a heartfelt bestu kveðjur, and thanks for reading along with me during this journey into Iceland. :)